Director of Engineering

Bright Money; Karnataka; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Ownership of delivery and technical方向

Equity at inflection stage

Data-driven culture

Excellent benefits package

Job summary

Bright Money, Bengaluru-based, seeks a Director of Engineering to lead and scale a core engineering org responsible for the consumer app, credit decisioning, and AI products. You will build the leadership layer, own architecture, budget, and cloud spend, and partner with Product, Data Sciences, and leadership on what gets built next.

You will manage engineering managers and leads, shape platform strategy, and ensure delivery at scale with a focus on reliability, security, and compliance for a US

Qualifications

• 12+ years in engineering with 5+ years in engineering leadership
• Led a multi-team group of 20+ engineers and grew a team during rapid scaling
• Deep hands-on background in distributed, high-throughput systems
• Ownership of architecture, platformisation and developer tooling
• Experience productionising ML/Gen AI with data science teams
• Experience owning engineering budgets, cloud cost and vendor decisions
• Strong track record of hiring and developing senior engineers and managers
• Fintech/payments or regulated consumer business experience is a plus
• Location based in Bengaluru or willing to relocate

Responsibilities

• Lead a multi-team engineering group with managers reporting to you
• Hire, coach, and retain senior engineers and managers
• Shape architecture and platform strategy aligned with CTO direction
• Own end-to-end delivery of distributed, data-heavy systems
• Ensure reliability, security, and compliance for US consumer lending tech
• Partner with Data Sciences to productionise ML/AI systems
• Collaborate with Product, Data, Infrastructure and business teams
• Manage annual/quarterly planning: headcount, cloud cost, and vendors
• Provide clear reporting to CTO and leadership on progress and risk

Skills

Leadership

Architecture & platform

ML & AI in prod

Hiring & mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About Bright Money

Bright Money is a Consumer FinTech for middle-income consumers. It brings together SaaS products that help consumers build credit, manage their debt, and access suitable loans and credit cards - the major financial needs of middle-income consumers living paycheck to paycheck.

Bright is a profitable, India-built, U.S.-market Consumer FinTech, with a revenue trajectory to $100M in the coming 6 months. The business model combines subscription revenue with financial services marketplace revenue from loans, credit cards, and credit-building tools.

Bright has launched an AI money assistant and AI agentic UX flows for access to credit. It will be the first AI-driven Consumer FinTech for middle-income consumers.

The Bright product suite has potential for global markets beyond the US. The market size is 100M global middle-income consumers, with a revenue pool opportunity of $15B.

Bright is backed by three top global venture capital firms and leading tech angel investors in the USA, Europe, and Asia.

Bright was established in 2019 by a leadership team drawn from McKinsey’s Banking Practice (Petko Plachkov and Avi Patchava) and InMobi’s Data Sciences organisation (Varun Modi and Avi Patchava). The core team is ex-InMobi Engineering and Data Sciences, joined more recently by senior leaders from McKinsey. Bright has a data-driven, fast-paced execution culture, and is building a global Consumer FinTech with all functions operating from India.

What is the role about?

Bright is looking for a Director - Engineering to lead and scale a core part of our engineering organisation in Bengaluru, reporting to the CTO. You will own delivery and technical direction for the systems behind Bright’s consumer app, credit decisioning, and AI products, and you will build the leadership layer that runs them.

This is a leader-of-leaders role. You will manage engineering managers and leads, shape architecture and platform strategy for your area within the CTO’s technical direction, own headcount, budget, and cloud spend for your teams, and partner with Product, Data Sciences, and the wider leadership team on what gets built next.

Bright is profitable, scaling fast in the U.S. market, and building AI into both the product and how the company runs. The systems are distributed, data-heavy, and carry real money and credit decisions, so engineering quality is a business outcome here, not an internal metric.

What will you do?

• Lead your organisation: Own and scale a multi-team group, with engineering managers and leads reporting to you; set the operating rhythm, standards, and performance bar across your teams.

• Build the leadership layer: Hire, coach, and retain senior engineers, leads, and managers, and develop the next line of engineering leadership beneath you.

• Technical strategy: Shape and execute architecture and platform strategy across services, data, and developer tooling for your area, in line with the CTO’s technical direction, and make the build-versus-buy and platformisation calls that shape how fast your teams can ship.

• Delivery at scale: Own end-to-end delivery of distributed, data-heavy systems - roadmap commitments, release predictability, and the trade-offs between speed and durability.

• Reliability & risk: Own availability, performance, security, and the engineering side of compliance obligations for the systems your teams run in a U.S. consumer-lending business.

• AI & ML in production: Partner with Data Sciences to productionise ML and Gen AI systems—serving, monitoring, and retraining - and raise engineering leverage through AI tooling across the org.

• Cross-functional leadership: Partner with Product, Data Sciences, Infrastructure and business teams on priorities, sequencing, and the commitments engineering makes to them.

• Planning & budget: Own annual and quarterly planning for your area - headcount, vendor decisions, cloud cost and TCO, and the resourcing choices behind them.

• Reporting & visibility: Report clear to the CTO and the wider leadership team on progress, risk, capacity, and investment, and contribute to leadership reviews as needed.

Ideal candidate profile

Experience & Background:

• Experience: 12+ years in engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership and at least 2 years managing managers or leads.

• Organisation scale: Has led a multi-team group of 20+ engineers, and has grown a team through a period of rapid scaling.

• Systems depth: Deep hands-on background in distributed, high-throughput, data-heavy systems; still able to go deep in a design review and hold a credible technical argument.

• Architecture & platform: Proven ownership of architecture, platformisation, and developer tooling, with evidence of the delivery gains those investments produced.

• ML & AI in production: Experience productionising ML or Gen AI systems in partnership with data science teams.

• Commercial ownership: Experience owning engineering budgets, cloud cost and TCO, vendor decisions, and resource planning.

• Hiring record: A strong track record of hiring and developing senior engineers and engineering managers.

• Domain: Experience in fintech, payments, lending, or another regulated, high-reliability consumer business is a strong plus.

• Location: Based in Bengaluru, or willing to relocate.

Mindset & Operating DNA:

• Ownership: Takes accountability for outcomes beyond their own remit, not only for their teams’ deliverables.

• Technical credibility: Earns the respect of senior engineers through judgment and depth, not position.

• Strategic thinking: Connects technical choices to business outcomes and can defend the trade-offs to a non-technical audience.

• Builder of leaders: Measures success by the strength of the managers and engineers they develop.

• Pace: Thrives in a high-growth environment where structure is still being built, and brings clarity rather than waiting for it.

Non-Fit Profiles

• Individual contributors or architects without sustained people-leadership experience.

• Managers who have led a single team, without experience managing managers or leading a group through scale.

• Leaders who have moved fully away from technical depth and cannot hold their own in architecture and design discussions.

• Candidates from large, process-heavy environments who need established structure and are uncomfortable in a fast-moving, ambiguous setting.

• Delivery or programme managers without hands-on engineering ownership.

What Bright Offers?

• A profitable sub-unicorn with U.S. market scale - liquidity potential at $1-3B valuations.

• Real ownership: You own delivery and technical direction for a core part of the platform, with a direct line to the CTO.

• Wealth creation: Equity at an inflection stage of scale.

• A data-driven, high-cadence culture that combines consulting rigor with FinTech speed.

• Benefits: Excellent benefits package in line with sector best practice.